I Am Bound to this Land by Blood: Collected Poems

Over a seven-year period between the late 1980s and the mid-1990s, Olu Oguibe wrote some of the most powerful and apocalyptic poetry ever to come out of Africa. In that period he published three slim volumes of poems that established his reputation as perhaps the finest poet of his generation: A Song from Exile, A Gathering Fear, and the long love poem, Songs for Catalina. Then, he quit writing poetry, almost as abruptly as he began, and declared his work done. Revised and edited by the poet himself, this collection brings together those three volumes as well as other poems, some of them more recent and published here for the first time. Most of the previously published poems are preserved in their original form. These poems echo the urgency and restlessness of the times in which they were written and capture the burden of hope and despair which postcolonial societies must bear. Olu Oguibe is a renowned scholar and artist as well as an award-winning poet. His books include The Culture Game, God’s Transistor Radio, A Song from Exile, and A Gathering Fear. A peripatetic traveler who has lived and worked in several countries across Africa, Europe and America, Oguibe is a senior fellow of the Smithsonian Institution and recipient of the State of Connecticut Governor’s award for excellence and lifetime achievement in the arts. He currently lives as a recluse in an early 19th century home in the old mill town of Rockville, Connecticut.